Speaker - Kamran Irani - Blood Bikes

After being welcomed as our guest speaker, Kamran Irani, explained the acronym of his charity in full – Service by Emergency Rider Volunteers in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire. Their objective being to provide an out of hours rapid response service to NHS hospitals in the region, delivering urgent blood products, medical supplies, medical equipment, human donor milk and, during the pandemic, COVID-19 testing kits, free of charge during the times when other transport options may be limited, such as at night, weekends, and public holidays. The service is provided free of charge to the NHS.

Kamran referred to the origin of Blood Bikes, as they have become known, when in 1962 a family member of a Margaret Ryan required a blood transfusion, and it became quickly apparent that there was difficulty in transporting the necessary blood products.  As a keen motor cyclist she identified that motor cyclists were ideally suited to providing such transport and a local volunteer group was established.  Blood Bikers now operate throughout the country with this local group having been established 15 years ago – operating to a rota, between 7pm and 6 am and 24 hours at weekends and public holidays, With 100 volunteers in 2020 this group responded to 3097 callouts, an increase of 19% over the previous twelve months,

SERV OBN utilises a fleet of dedicated response vehicles to be able to provide the potentially lifesaving service; each of the fleet vehicles carries the names of women known for their contributions to medicine. Whilst it is primarily a Motorcycle service – when there is a large consignment, poor weather conditions (when it would be dangerous to use a motorcycle) or the temperature is outside the permitted range to transport Blood Products via motorcycle, their four wheeled vehicles come into play. The motorbikes used are supplied to police motorbike configuration, two such machine having been funded by a Rotary Club.

The entire operation is operated by volunteers with riders being at least 25 years old, and who are qualified advance riders by Institute of Advanced Motorist and ROSPA standards. Many of the riders are Police qualified motorcyclists, but all recruits are subject to a strict assessment before entering an induction training including Hospital familiarisation to ensure safe and timely operation. 

SERV OBN were awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2020 in recognition of the fantastic worked carried out by their volunteers. This award is equivalent to an MBE.

A relatively new programme has developed out of an initiative at The John Radcliff Hospital, Oxford.   It had been identified that sick and premature babies’ health improved rapidly when receiving human breast milk rather than a milk preparation.  And with nursing mothers not always able to provide enough, but others having a surplus, the challenge to transport milk from volunteer providers could be met by Bikers.  A system of collecting frozen milk from volunteers for the Hospital Maternity unit has been devised, the Angel Program established, and the system adopted by other NHS Trusts. In 2020 in this area, 1621 litres of milk were collected for 227 mothers which feed 496 babies.

The National Association of Blood Bikes was formed in 2008 with 4 groups today there now 34 Groups nationwide, consisting of 3000 volunteers and 260 vehicles serving 300 hospitals.  With an average of 100,000 runs completed each year at no cost to the NHS, which would otherwise have to pay £50 taxi fare, Blood Bikes are providing cash savings as well as life saving activities.  And the range of products transported has spread to specialist medical equipment and, recently, biopsy samples from a treatment centre to specialist analyst laboratory with clinical data then returned to patient location enabling rapid diagnosis.  On occasions, Inter NHS trust support necessitates transporting products across country and such transfers have involved up to five different groups relaying precious materials.  One such relay totalling 450 miles!

Kamran’s presentation provoked many questions. It was apparent that the existence of the service was not widely known amongst members despite the frequency of journeys undertaken by Blood Bikers locally.  Following such an informative talk by a volunteer making such a contribution to the local community, The Rotary Club of Chesham forwarded a donation to the charity.

More information is available at  https://serv-obn.org.uk/